Category: Hippy-Dippy Stuff

Sometime ago I was invited to join a “Crunchy Moms Group”. If you don’t know what that means, you should Google it, but you’ll have to do it later because, frankly, I’m writing a book about a cow and I don’t have the time to wait on you.

Crunchy moms are women who make their own soap and wear hand-made calico peasant skirts and raise chickens. They grow mushrooms in their compost pile, hug trees, go braless, and eat organic kale chips for breakfast. They bravely venture out in public without makeup, and clean their houses – and their bodies – with nothing but baking soda and vinegar. They are green, eco-friendly, natural-minded, family-oriented granola eaters. Hence the term “Crunchy Mom”.

And I am not one. But I joined the group anyway, because it seemed like the polite thing to do.

I feel like such a phony.

I’m not crunchy. If anything, I’m caffeinated.

I haven’t worn a peasant skirt since 1977, Ulta is my happy place, and I wear my 18-hour bra 16 hours a day. I love my Honda minivan and I collect salad ingredients from the produce aisle, not the garden. In fact, the only mushroom I ever grew was behind the toilet in my humid Georgia apartment (it was fairly impressive if I do say so myself, but I did not feel compelled to eat it).

I will confess that one time I DID eat a kale chip, but then I had to go outside to lick the bottom of the lawn mower to make sure they weren’t the same thing. The verdict is still out on that. And thanks to Saturday Night Live character, Mary-Katherine Gallagher, the thought of tree-hugging kinda freaks me out.

Clearly, I am NOT a Crunchy Mom. Half-baked maybe, dipped in a little organic coconut oil.

Although, a few months after joining the Crunchy Mom group, I ran across a “How Crunchy Are You?” quiz. (And you should know, I’m a sucker for a good quiz.) The result forced me to admit that I was a co-sleeping, partial-cloth-diapering, non-vaxing, Mooncup-wearing, homebirthing, homeschooling, non-medicating, organic-baby-food-making, recycling rebel whose baby self-weaned at 30 months. Oh yeah, and I’m a doula.

Turns out I’m a “Granola Earth Mama”. The only thing that saved me from a perfect score of “Crunchier than Grape Nuts” is that I shave my armpits. Well, sometimes.

The following story is true and is intended for mature audiences only. This blog contains: unspoken language, mild peril, sexual innuendos, processed food, and swashbuckling action – not necessarily in that order. Do not attempt to try any of this at home without the oversight of a professional. This blog was manufactured in a facility that uses tree nuts and soy. Oh, and multiple mice were harmed during the making of this production. That’s all. Sit back and enjoy.

My name is Stephanie. I’m wearing wedges. The blog you are about to read is overdramatized. The names were changed to protect the innocent, but since there were no innocents, I changed all the names back.

The story started in March when I decided to fully embrace REAL food. No more processed junk, no more bleached white flour, no more high-fructose corn syrup, no more artificial sweeteners, NO MORE FAST FOOD, and no wire hangers. EVER!

Some time later, several friends organized an organic food delivery, which would have to be picked up once a month, 60 miles from where we are. We were set us up as a ‘satellite group’ with one contact person. If there are issues, they will coordinate with her. The rest of us simply have to make the 2-hour round trip when our turn rolls around.

June was my turn. I was to meet the Covenant truck on Monday afternoon at the designated truck stop.

Since this was my maiden voyage, I left early to avoid any complications. I arrived 45 minutes before the driver was scheduled to be there, drove around the truck stop, but seeing no sign that he and his Covenant semi had also arrived early, I parked and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The driver was now a half hour late. At 4:00 I texted our contact person to be CERTAIN I was in the right location (a moderate-sized truck stop), and to verify I am looking for a semi with ‘Covenant’ on the side. She does not return my text. I drove through the truck stop again, just to be sure I was not missing something.

At 45-minutes past time, I CALLED our contact person. She did not answer my call. This is NOT normal. I drove around the truck stop another time, again just to be sure. My stomach was starting to growl, but the only food off this exit is a McDonald’s and, as I said earlier, fast food is NOT on my Real Food Agenda.

At an hour late, I called the girl who had picked up last month, and she verified the semi does, indeed, say Covenant on the side, and added the fact there will likely be 2 people in the truck. A few minutes later she called back with phone numbers. So I called the organic grocery company, who gave me the number to the trucking warehouse, who gave me the truck driver’s number, who chased the cat, who killed the rat, who ate the cheese… who didn’t answer his phone.

Another quarter-of-an-hour later, the driver called back to say he’d had a breakdown (I assume he meant mechanical and not emotional). He had left a message with our contact person earlier in the day, but she hadn’t responded. He apologized, but said he wouldn’t arrive for another 2 hours.

I was supposed to have dinner with my daughter. I phoned her to say “that ain’t happenin,” as I won’t be back to the house before at least 8:30.

Now all the girls in our grocery group are texting and calling and wanting to know what time they can expect their healthy goodies, and I’m scrambling to return their texts, all the while I’m stuck at this truck stop exit for another two hours waiting on my organic avocados and steel-cut oats and sweet potato crackers, which I should happily be snacking on at this point instead of listening to my tummy rumble.

or

Since I have time to kill, I look around for something – ANYTHING – to do besides languish in the van another 120 minutes, sweating and grumbling. It’s 104 degrees in the shade – and there IS no shade – the only things that ARE here are the truck stop, an interstate, a McDonald’s and a large tacky touristy gift shop. I don’t need diesel, I’m not eating fast food, so “Eenie, meenie, miney… tacky gift shop!”

I spent an hour taking pictures of gaudy gadgets and sending them to my daughter:”Things I am buying for your house.” I was especially fond of the 4-ft-tall-Mystic-Fairy-statue. This amused her somewhat and kept me entertained for a bit.

After strolling past the ceramics and do-dads and knick-knacks and bric-a-brak and CRAP that nobody should ever spend money on, I perused the candy aisle. Mmmmm…. gummy worms and orange marshmallows. Obviously, I’m starving now, as it’s 6 p.m. and I haven’t eaten since my 11:30 bowl of field greens.

So, while I waited on my organic fruits and veggies and gluten-free bread to arrive… I compromised all my principles and drove through McDonald’s for some pink slime and a cup of sodium phosphate. Shut up. It was delicious.

At least I was less grouchy now, and since it was nearly truck-arrival-time, I returned to the truck stop just in time to see a Covenant Transport truck – with two men in the cab – pull into the line of semis in the back. I drove in front of them and waved (as they would be expecting me). They didn’t acknowledge me with anything other than quizzical looks. I had a hesitant feeling, as they didn’t look like truck drivers so much as vagrants in a police line-up, so I pulled back around to the front to wait some more.

After a couple of minutes, my brain started to reason with me. “Steph, you’ve been here HOURS longer than you were supposed to. You have missed dinner with Kacey. You are tired and hot and bored and there is a Covenant Truck parked back there, likely with your boxes in it! Go back there and ask!”

Bravely I got out of my car and walked over to the cab of the Covenant Transport truck. There was now only one man in there. He was wearing a gold necklace and a sweaty black tank top (I’m assuming to coordinate with his sweaty black hair) and holding a brown glass bottle. He lowered the window and looked down at me. I called up something like, “I’m here for my Azure pick up?” But because there are dozens of trucks lined up here, and it was very loud, and because I got so hot sitting in the van that I took off the camisole under my shirt that WAS keeping the girls tucked in, I’m pretty sure what he heard was, “I’m here to ensure a pick up”.

So…over the course of a single weekend I became legally blind in my right eye. The toddler and I were playing and being silly, and generally having fun jumping off tables and running with scissors when the fused fontanelle of Charlotte’s cute little cranium crashed into my delicate ocular socket. It was like the infamous iceberg against the hull of the TItanic (which shattered on impact, much like the lens in my eye). Tears of laughter and excruciating pain ensued. Mostly the pain thing, though.

After the collision, I excused myself for the evening with an “I just need to lie down” song and dance. Then I kept singing and dancing the same routine for several days. “I’ll be fine tomorrow. It will go away soon. It’s merely a flesh wound.” That’s just how I roll.

I always assume the _______________ (fill in the blank)

chronic migraines

dirty kitchen

broken heart

embarrassing gossip

North Atlantic iceberg

will just magically go away if I ignore it.

It almost never does.

The Titanic took 2 hours and 40 minutes to go down. Took me several stubborn days. By the time I signaled SOS and had someone drive me to the optometrist’s office, I could no longer see the enormous E at the top of the eye chart.

Okay, so I could no longer even see the eye chart.

I was, in the words of Dr. M., “hours away from permanent blindness” in that eye. SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH. Apparently patience is not always a virtue. Sometimes it’s downright stupid. Next time I will signal for help before the situation becomes critical, as I have no desire to be scared half to death… twice.

Nine ophthalmology appointments, two surgeries, one pirate patch, seven prescriptions, three mascara-less weeks, and a few thousand dollars later and I’m incredibly grateful I don’t have to “see your face” with my hands. Especially those of you with oily T-zones.

So here’s what Aesop and I have learned from this adventure:

Icebergs and toddlers are never as harmless as they appear.

Going down with the ship is pointless when there are plenty of empty seats in the optometrist’s waiting room.

Mom was right, if you have too much fun, somebody’s going to put an eye out.